Dominick Vanthienen

My research

My Phd project is titled "Control of an autonomous flying manipulator" and is part of the FWO (Fund for Scientific Research- Flanders) project G04041N, "Autonomous manipulation using a flying robot" .
Joris De Schutter and Herman Bruyninckx are my promotors.
The main research platform used is a Pelican quadrotor from AscTec GmbH.

The goal of the project is
  • performing manipulation tasks using an autonomous quadrotor,
  • applying the sensor-based framework for task specification and control, developed in our research group, to the autonomous quadrotor and
  • robust control of the quadrotor during manipulation task execution.
The focus of my research consists of the following topics:
  • The extension of the degrees of freedom of the quadrotor in a broad sense: dexterity, undo/improve non-holonomic nature and reaching outside rotor span
  • Complex manipulation: bilateral contacts, flexibility in gripper
  • Implement general framework based on iTaSC: General software framework compliant with 5C’s (separation of concerns) and with maximal reusability, implementation of acceleration-resolved scheme, formulation of quadrotor problem in this general framework
The other project members include Steven Bellens and Jon Verbeke.